Sykes Herbie - The race against the Stasi: the incredible story of Dieter Wiedemann, the Iron Curtain and the greatest cycling race on Earth

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HERBIE SYKES

THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF DIETER WIEDEMANN, THE IRON CURTAIN AND THE GREATEST CYCLING RACE ON EARTH

First published in 2014

by Aurum Press Ltd, 7477 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF

www.aurumpress.co.uk

This eBook edition first published in 2014

Copyright Herbie Sykes 2014

Herbie Sykes has asserted his moral right to be identified as the Author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Digital edition: 978-1-78131-440-1
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For

P, P & T

The Peace Race was an oasis, and through it we were able to dream. It was about different peoples, from different countries, crossing borders and coming together. It was about genuine fellowship, and that was its beauty and virtue. For two weeks a year it offered us a window on worlds we were denied access to. It was a huge paradox, obviously, but for me it remains something beautiful. It was the race of peace.

Horst Schfer, Curator, Peace Race Museum

Documents prefixed MfS (Ministry for State Security) are reproduced from Stasi files. Those prefixed MfS383/65 are reproduced from Wiedemanns file. Where the prefix includes a number other than 383/65, they are reproduced from the files of the informants who reported on him.

Many persons are redacted in the Stasi files. People referred to as (?) are either protected under current legislation, unknown to the author, or have chosen to remain anonymous. In some instances addresses and other indicators are also redacted, in order to help conceal their identity. Some blocks of text have been redacted from the Stasi files. In these instances the text is either indecipherable or is not germane to Dieter Wiedemann. In translating the Stasi files I have attempted to be as faithful as possible to the original documents. On occasion, therefore, the grammar may be less than perfect.

This work is not intended as an examination of Stasi structure or methodology, but twenty-five secret informants are believed to have compiled reports on or including Dieter Wiedemann. Most were submitted to one of the following four Stasi offices:

Berlin: Seat of the vast Stasi headquarters and of the GDR Cycling Federation. From here, main department V sought to recruit Wiedemann as an informant in 1962.

Chemnitz (previously known as Karl-Marx-Stadt): One of the fifteen regional area command units.

Flha: A district service unit in Wiedemanns home town, subordinate to Chemnitz Area Command Unit.

W: A division responsible for the Wismut uranium mining company and its assets, including the sport club it ran.

Staff or informants from the following Stasi departments compiled reports on Wiedemann at one time or another:

Main Department II: Counterintelligence

Department M: Postal surveillance

Main Department VI: Passport control, Tourism

Main Department VII: Ministry for the Interior, Peoples Police

Main Department VIII: Economy

Main Department XX: Apparatus of the State, Culture (including sport), Church, Underground

Main Department V: As Main Department XX, prior to 1964

The Stasi files use various terms to describe the unofficial informants. Most commonly these are GI (Geheimer Informator), the term used throughout the 1950s, and IM (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter), adopted in 1969 but already prevalent beforehand. For the purposes of simplicity, however, I have used the term informant throughout the text. Equally, where other Stasi abbreviations appear (for example KW; conspiratorial dwelling), I have taken the liberty of translating them.

All of the interviews in this book were carried out before the Stasi files were accessed.

Witnesses

Dieter: Dieter Wiedemann

Sylvia: Sylvia Wiedemann, wife of Dieter

Nicole, Alex and Nina: Daughters of Dieter and Sylvia

Eberhard: Eberhard Wiedemann, brother of Dieter

Rainer: Rainer Mller, best friend of Dieter

Klaus: Klaus Huhn, sports editor, Neues Deutschland

Tve: Tve Schur, racing cyclist with DHfK

Immo: Immo Rittmeyer, racing cyclist with SC Karl-Marx-Stadt

Manfred: Manfred Weissleder, racing cyclist with SC Karl-Marx-Stadt

Ian: Ian Steel, British racing cyclist

Frank: Frank Seal, British racing cyclist

Axel: Axel Peschel, racing cyclist with Dynamo Berlin

Gerhard: Gerhard Richter, Wiedemann family friend

Udo: Udo Richter, son of Dieters trainer, fellow cyclist and defector

In absentia

Emil: Emil Reinecke, racing cyclist with DHfK

Werner: Werner Scharch, former president of GDR cycling and defector

Informants

Fritzsche: Cycling trainer, SC Karl-Marx-Stadt, born 1915

Hildebrand: Cycling trainer, SC Dynamo Berlin, born 1929

Jonni: Worker, SDAG Wismut, born 1926

Kaufmann: Neighbour of Dieter Wiedemann, born 1897

Orion: Classmate of Dieter Wiedemann, born 1941

Radler: Cycling trainer, SC Dynamo Berlin, born 1913

Seppel: Retired cyclist, trainer at BSG Wismut, born 1927

Ursel: Worker, SDAG Wismut, born 1928

THE RACE FOR PEACE

Arguably the most efficient of the Warsaw Pact dictatorships, East Germany (the GDR) is invariably portrayed as the cruellest and most oppressive. In the broad-brush historical way of things, its come to be characterised by little more than the Berlin Wall, and by the secret police force known as the Stasi. In a sporting context its synonymous with a grotesque, state-orchestrated doping programme, with Olympic fraud on a mammoth scale.